What are the differences between Agfa Copex Rapid, Adox CMS 20, Rollei ATP1.1 ? Is one particularly suited to pictorial photography ? And which developers work best with each film (for pictorial use). Are there any other tech films I left out ?

Besides the technical aspects of resolution and grain there is another imho much more important factor that hasn't been discussed so far: the tonal characteristics. TechPan has a completely different look as f.e. Copex rapid or CMS. They are absolutely uncomparable in this regard. Copex is othopanchromatic and TechPan is slightly superpanchromatic. The look is very different. You may like it or not. How can you ignore this most important point? Do you count grains or do you want to create images?

And yes, I'm referrig to the "real" Technical Pan made by Kodak and not the recent "advanced" wannabe. And if you count linepairs lp/mm, please count them at low contrast (1:1.6 not 1:1000!) and see how some high resolving films outperform any "regular" film hands down! That's what really matters. No big name lenses needed to show that.

TechPan has a completely different look as f.e. Copex rapid or CMS. They are absolutely uncomparable in this regard. Copex is othopanchromatic and TechPan is slightly superpanchromatic. The look is very different. You may like it or not. How can you ignore this most important point?..

Check Your facts about Copex-Rapid.
Copex-Rapid is panchromatic, designed for flow cameras and for excellent registration of colour documents.
Try it with color filters and You will see what I am talking about.

CMS 20 is orthopan.

If superpanchromatic is important, then Agfa-Gevaert and Ilford are still manufacturing some.

@ Trask: of course Olympus XA, use your TechPan stock, in my opinion it's one of the most interesting films ever made.
@ georg16nik: yes, Copex is panchromatic. Sorry for that. I thought I once had seen a graph were the sensitivity above 600 nm goes down very fast.
Maybe 4 o'clock a.m. is not the best time for recalling facts.

I want to make images; but I want to have control over my process first so that I don't have to think about all the time. I'm an artist and while I like trying different films, I just want to find a great combination so that I can just shoot ! And getting there is no easy feat because I can be a perfectionist

Right now I have too much information and too many contradicting opinions, and I'm confused even more - the great internet can be a real pain in the ass

I used to shoot Techpan with Technidol and I would like to find something similar. As I stated originally, I want to make 40 inch prints with my exising medium format gear (Hasseblad V). The film will be drum scanned and printed using Piezography or some similar process, and I want to find the 'best' combination (I know it's very subjective) of resolution and tonality.

So with that in mind, I was hoping to get people's real world opinion on these 'new' high resolution films.

From the research I've done:

- Rollei ATP 1.1 is superpanchromatic (and similar to Tech Pan)
Spectral sensitivity from 370 up to 700nm. According to Erwin Puts: Rollei ATP developed in Spur is very close to the original Tech Panhttp://www.imx.nl/photo/Film/Film/page7.html

- Agfa Copex Rapid is panchromatic.
According to Jan (HHPhoto) on the rangefinderforums : "Best deal for Copex Rapid is Spur Modular UR developer. Compared to Rodinal you will get much higher speed (ISO 50), much finer grain, much more resolution and much better highlight detail. No blown out highlights as with Rodinal." He also states the film has a wider dynamic range than Agfa APX 100.

- CMS 20 is orthopanchromatic, more sensitive to blue light. I don't have much experience with ortho films, will these blow out blue sky at high altitude ?

Yes Paul, if you ask 10 people about one film and one developer, you get at least 11 opinions. You can collect data, but then you must make your own experiances and decide. Because you liked the old TechPan, I would first try the "new" ATP. It's most probably Aviphot Pan 25 or something very similar from Agfa-Gevaert/Belgium and their production quality is excellent. 300 lp/mm at 1:1.6 contrast is really hard to beat. If I wouldn't have a nice stock of old TechPan that I like so much I surely would try this one.

Best - Reinhold

Edit:

" CMS 20 is orthopanchromatic, more sensitive to blue light. I don't have much experience with ortho films, will these blow out blue sky at high altitude ?"

Yes, it will, even at regular altitude. If you want great sky rendering and seperation of clouds then a superpan film would be my very first choice - maybe even with a red or orange filter. If you want athmospheric "character" with more haze in the distant, then a ortho or orthopan film would be the choice. So far my first-grader knowledge.....

Edit2:
"but I want to have control over my process first so that I don't have to think about all the time." -> use film and gear that you know inside out.

Last edited by grommi; 12-10-2012 at 05:33 PM. Click to view previous post history.

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@ georg16nik: yes, Copex is panchromatic. Sorry for that. I thought I once had seen a graph were the sensitivity above 600 nm goes down very fast.
Maybe 4 o'clock a.m. is not the best time for recalling facts.

Perhaps it was the CMS 20 graph You saw, senstivity drops after 600nm.

Originally Posted by fatso

...
- Rollei ATP 1.1 is superpanchromatic (and similar to Tech Pan)
Spectral sensitivity from 370 up to 700nm. According to Erwin Puts: Rollei ATP developed in Spur is very close to the original Tech Panhttp://www.imx.nl/photo/Film/Film/page7.html .....

Yes, Rollei ATP is the closest You can get to Kodak Techpan, today.

Originally Posted by fatso

...
- Agfa Copex Rapid is panchromatic.
According to Jan (HHPhoto) on the rangefinderforums : "Best deal for Copex Rapid is Spur Modular UR developer. Compared to Rodinal you will get much higher speed (ISO 50), much finer grain, much more resolution and much better highlight detail. No blown out highlights as with Rodinal." He also states the film has a wider dynamic range than Agfa APX 100.

Yes, HHPhoto is right, several other folks on APUG including myself can confirm the above.

Originally Posted by fatso

...
- CMS 20 is orthopanchromatic, more sensitive to blue light. I don't have much experience with ortho films, will these blow out blue sky at high altitude ?....

Use yellow filter with CMS 20 and Your skies should be fine.
Some shots with CMS20 and yellow filter and the last with orange flter.
Developed in Rodinal.